Having read most of Anne's books twice or more my worst book (as yet unfinished) is The Lady. I am no horse person.

Some of the Pern books and Acorna books are very low on my list of rereading.

Favourite books have been read up to 10 times

__________________Nina

The Rowan is my favourite!

"The name rowan is believed to derive from the Norse runa - "a charm". It was often planted outside houses to ward off witches. On May Day a spray of rowan leaves was hung over doors to repel evil, and wells dressed with rowan to keep witches away. The rowan, or mountain ash, is found commonly in Scotland, sometimes clinging to a rock face."

You're absolutely right about how individual the choice is Can I persuade you to give The Lady another attempt? In addition to the horses it's a fascinating social commentary of Ireland and its society at a particular point in its history, when women were regarded as chattels, and a woman had no recourse against a violent husband...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nina

Seeing your answers made me realise how individual the choise is.

Having read most of Anne's books twice or more my worst book (as yet unfinished) is The Lady. I am no horse person.

I had the same feelings of declaring war on everyone when reading this entire thread

I will promise you not to give up on The Lady - if only to keep the peace

Social realism from Ireland has been the topic of very many books and films I have read and seen. Some have even been part of an extensive curriculum during my studies with both distant and recent Irish history, and as such the topic does not largely appeal to me right now.

Apart from the above many of the women in Anne's books are trying to survive in a man's world, which make these books especially appealing and an important contribution in defence of women. Menolly was the first one I read about and could identify with. An Anne theme reoccuring here and there and everywhere

The sad thing is that very many women around the world still live that with no immediate future of escaping their fate. Even in our own countries some women are not treated any better today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anneli

*tactfully refrains from declaring war on Nina*

You're absolutely right about how individual the choice is Can I persuade you to give The Lady another attempt? In addition to the horses it's a fascinating social commentary of Ireland and its society at a particular point in its history, when women were regarded as chattels, and a woman had no recourse against a violent husband...

__________________Nina

The Rowan is my favourite!

"The name rowan is believed to derive from the Norse runa - "a charm". It was often planted outside houses to ward off witches. On May Day a spray of rowan leaves was hung over doors to repel evil, and wells dressed with rowan to keep witches away. The rowan, or mountain ash, is found commonly in Scotland, sometimes clinging to a rock face."

Well, I'm not declaring war. I also find it interesting that the favorites of some of us are the least liked of others. We're an interesting mix of people here at MoM and that's what keeps me coming back!

But I love The Lady and not entirely because I used to be a "Horse Person")

That said, I agree entirely that the Acorna series is not worth the paper they're printed on I've tried several times to read them and simply had to give up in disgust at the inanity and banality of the so-called "plot(s)" Admittedly, I haven't even tried the new PTB books, one of the (dis)advantages of living overseas is that I can't get them from the public library first to see if they're worth the investment

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faren

I haven't been able to finish "The Lady" either. I also gave up on the Acorna series after the first few. The new PTB books also have suffered. They just seem very juvenile.

Hated hated HATED Masterharper of Pern. Why does Robinton have to be a Gary Stu all the sudden? Child prodigy, male HAD pretty much, present at EVERY important event EVAR, and too too perfect. Not to mention the book messes with the timeline worse than most and presents a Pern pretty well at odds with what's given in DF or DQ.

I liked the first freedom book well enough, but the sequels are all wall bangers for me, as is Nimisha's Ship. Let's just say the author has a rather disturbing obsession with women bearing as many children as possible in these books especially.

For me, I couldn't get into the Acorna series, so that would be on my list - I couldn't get past the first book. MHoP wasn't too bad, although the inconsistencies tend to stand out whenever I reread it.

I trudged through the first Acorna book, hoping it would get better as I read and I even tried the next one but gave up half way through ...the only time I have not enjoyed a book or series written by Anne.

It's funny to me that so few of you liked the Acorna books. I liked all of them--loved reading Margaret's and Anne's first two and enjoyed writing the ones I participated in. The one with time travel was one of my favorites. Can't please all of the people all of the time. . .

Many of Anne's more fervent readers (us ) like Pern, Crystal Singer, and the Talent books the most. Acorna is, IMO, the most different from them so we're not exactly the series' target audience. It's not our style

__________________You can take me down, you can show me your home.
Not the place where you live, but the place where you belong.
~Toad the Wet Sprocket

Many of Anne's more fervent readers (us ) like Pern, Crystal Singer, and the Talent books the most. Acorna is, IMO, the most different from them so we're not exactly the series' target audience. It's not our style

I like the Brain Ship Fan of Most of Them F.O.M.T It took a warming up with one of the books.

One of the hardest things for a very successful writer is to continue to write while not doing the same books over and over again and still please her fans. I was a fan of Anne's before I ever started writing my own books, much less writing with her, and I like the Harper Hall series (particularly) and the Ship Who Sang best though I've enjoyed them all for different reasons and really would be hard-pressed to pick a bad one.
Everything I've written with her has started out with an idea we each contributed to and developed. Nobody writes Pern but family. And you're right, Pam. You are not the target audience as the Acornas were to try to interest young girls in science fiction--I got on board at book 3 but I must say I disagree a lot with the folks who say they can't stand Margaret's writing (and of course I disagree with those who can't stand me either but even the best people have fatal flaws). I thought the first two Acorna books were quite gripping--I wouldn't have agreed to continue the series if I hadn't liked them a lot. And Anne wrote those too, not just Margaret, though they were deepened by Margaret's knowledge of Africa and linguistics. One of my biggest challenges in following their books wasn't just being compared with Anne's solo work, a losing game most of the time anyway, but having to make up a culture based on a language Margaret had previously made up!
I knew looking at this thread would be self-destructive anyway but now I have all of your names written down in my little book so I will be sure only to leave you the most troublesome of my cats in my will. (That's a joke, folks.)

The fact you also read threads/posts not flattering to you or even ciricising your work contributes to making you the great writer you are And the fact you stay on at the board and will discuss makes you stand out even more.

As attractiveness, suspense and appeal goes I must admit I like the first quartet of books better than the rest. Now don't get me wrong, that says nothing of writing style and I must say I've read all volumes in the first series with pleasure (and of course own duplicates of them as well as some ARC's ), it is just that they didn't succeed in getting me "involved" as the first four. Gee, it is hard to explain this, especially so because I actually can not pinpoint or indicate why exactly this happened.

I understand the next series were meant (more) for the juvenile market? Maybe that is why those are lowest on the Acorna ladder for me.
We can express our feelings here but the thing is that sales figures must have been attractive enough to publish all titles and continue the series and I must admit that I am very aware that means they must have sold reasonably well and let me put my personal opinion in the right perspective.

__________________Hans, also known as Elrhan, Master Archivist

Visit The Pern Museum & Archives for all your Pern and Anne McCaffrey News and Resources!
The Pern Museum & Archives is the home of the Pern Encyclopedia and the Pern Bloodlines.

I noticed a long time ago that what one reader absolutely hates about a book is someone else's favorite thing about it so it's all pretty subjective. The thing that gets me through sometimes isn't just sales figures but the people who have written and told me that my book got them through a scary situation, a stay in the hospital, a bad divorce, all kinds of trauma. That makes it worth doing and of course, I have heard the same sort of thing about Anne's books (especially the Pern ones) from even more people.
Yes, Hans, both the Twins and the Acorna's Children series were sold for the juvenile market. There are a lot of adult readers who enjoy YA and juvenile books too so we tried to make them sort of family friendly. One of the things I wanted to do particularly was to have the children have adventures without having to kill off their parents first. So many kids' books start off with the children being orphaned or abandoned or something. Since these were the children of the heroes of our previous books, we didn't want that to happen and yet, we couldn't let them heroically solve all the problems either. Anyway, I'll get out of this thread and let you folks continue with your thoughts without me maybe cramping your style.

I noticed a long time ago that what one reader absolutely hates about a book is someone else's favorite thing about it so it's all pretty subjective. The thing that gets me through sometimes isn't just sales figures but the people who have written and told me that my book got them through a scary situation, a stay in the hospital, a bad divorce, all kinds of trauma. That makes it worth doing and of course, I have heard the same sort of thing about Anne's books (especially the Pern ones) from even more people.
Yes, Hans, both the Twins and the Acorna's Children series were sold for the juvenile market. There are a lot of adult readers who enjoy YA and juvenile books too so we tried to make them sort of family friendly. One of the things I wanted to do particularly was to have the children have adventures without having to kill off their parents first. So many kids' books start off with the children being orphaned or abandoned or something. Since these were the children of the heroes of our previous books, we didn't want that to happen and yet, we couldn't let them heroically solve all the problems either. Anyway, I'll get out of this thread and let you folks continue with your thoughts without me maybe cramping your style.

Who said anything about cramp it up, Its just what was getting me is the Acorna's Children and the Acorna is the pronunciation key of the different langage. I hope you folks can understand me. that what cought me off a bit. I've like the POB books.

The pronunciation key was made up by Margaret, who is a linguist. I pretty much ignored it because I am not a linguist but Margaret told me she and Anne had decided that since the Linyaari were equine-evolved people, they could say anything a horse could pronounce--they made it horse-vocal-cord friendly. Some letters horses can't pronounce--like S's, weren't in the language and there were a lot of double vowels. I mostly used names that phonetically were common names but looked exotic if you did a double vowel just so people would be able to pronounce them if they said them out loud. Thus Aari is actually just Ari, Maak is Mac, Khorii is Cory etc. Khiindi is sort of a takeoff on Chiindi, the Navajo term for a ghost or evil spirit. I just pronounce it kin-dee.

The pronunciation key was made up by Margaret, who is a linguist. I pretty much ignored it because I am not a linguist but Margaret told me she and Anne had decided that since the Linyaari were equine-evolved people, they could say anything a horse could pronounce--they made it horse-vocal-cord friendly. Some letters horses can't pronounce--like S's, weren't in the language and there were a lot of double vowels. I mostly used names that phonetically were common names but looked exotic if you did a double vowel just so people would be able to pronounce them if they said them out loud. Thus Aari is actually just Ari, Maak is Mac, Khorii is Cory etc. Khiindi is sort of a takeoff on Chiindi, the Navajo term for a ghost or evil spirit. I just pronounce it kin-dee.

I'm not sure I can finger a "worst" book. I can finger the one that's caused me the most trouble--The MasterHarper of Pern, because I want to like it as Robinton is pretty much my favorite character across ANY book series I've read, yet there's so many inconsistencies with it. But there's other books written by AMC that are worse than that one, if you count me being entirely unable to finish them, or me reading them only once years ago and never again having the desire to re-read.

In general I haven't liked any of the co-authored books with the one notable exception of The Ship Who Searched which was co-authored by Mercedes Lackey. They lack a certain crispness in execution, a certain zing, that AMC's earlier solo works have. (I say earlier solo works, because AMC's stories also get weaker the more novels she does in a particular setting. I'm trying to think of any "comeback" novels in any series that was better than the first one or two or three, and I can't, except maaaybe Pern which had a few hiccups in the early books where quality ping-ponged before it utterly went downhill. Well, perhaps Crystal Singers...not a bad book there...but that was only ever 3 books so it never had opportunity to slide.)

Has to be the Acorna series for me. The first one wasn't too dire, but after that forget it. Much too childish.

And the 'romance books' (Mark of Merlin, Ring of Fear, Kilternan Legacy, Year of the Lucy, and The Lady) are a bit 'squirmy'. I enjoy the 2 horse based ones (RoF & Lady) most but they do have dreadful dialogue and somewhat cardboardy characters. That said, I've kept them all, but I tried to sell the 3 Acorna books I have left on ebay and got no takers.